1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a system that alerts or warns a user of an electronic mail system as to the addressees of a message before the message is sent, after the user indicates that the message is to be sent, and allows the sender to revise the list of addressees or cancel the sending entirely.
2. Description of the Related Art
A person who receives electronic mail (e-mail) often receives a message as one of many recipients. When the individual or e-mail system user responds or replies to the message, often the user may select an option that replies to the sender and sends copies of the reply to all of the recipients of the original message. This selection is often made before the user has composed the reply. It can be the case that the user replies with comments about one of the recipients, not consciously intending that a copy be sent to that particular recipient. Once the user has finished the message the user initiates sending the message to all of the addresses at once, including sending the message to the unintended addressee. This often causes discord between the user and the unintended recipient who erroneously received the message.
A similar situation can occur when addressees of a message are being selected from an address book or list. The user, when selecting the recipients, may inadvertently select (xe2x80x9cclick-onxe2x80x9d) an addressee next to the intended recipient in the list creating a situation where a message is erroneously addressed.
Sending a message to multiple recipients using a single mailing list name is another example of how e-mail might be mistakenly directed. For example, a sender wants to e-mail a group and is thinking about the regular members as the message is written. The sender forgets that a substitute member is also on the list, or the list may be out of the sender""s control and unknown to the sender the list has been modified to include an additional member, and the sender writes something about the individual or substitute member and sends the message.
In addressing an e-mail, a user often refers to a recipient by a nickname or alias. When two or more aliases are similar, for example when potential addressees (i.e., address book entries) have the same last name, the user may inadvertently address an e-mail to the similar addressee.
What is needed is a system that will alert the user to addressees of a message after it has been composed but before it is sent that will allow the user to change the list of addressees or to edit the message considering the list of addressees.
Often e-mail is improperly addressed because of the haste with which a sender formulates an address. Ultimately, such mail will be returned after some period of time. The impact of this mistake is hardest felt when time is of the essence.
What is needed is a system that will recognize or detect and alert the user to incomplete or improper addresses before a message is sent and allow the user to correct the addresses.
Today computer viruses can compose and send e-mail without a user being aware of the transmission of such unauthorized e-mail.
What is needed is a system that will alert a user when an unauthorized e-mail is being sent by the user""s system and allow the user to cancel the message before it is sent.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an e-mail system that alerts a user to the addressees of an e-mail message before it is sent.
It is another object of the present invention to allow a user to modify a list of addressees of an e-mail message before the message is sent and after the addressee list is originally created.
It is also an object of the present invention to alert a user when an unauthorized e-mail message is being sent.
It is a further object of the present invention to determine whether an addressee""s address is properly entered and to alert the user in the case of a potentially undeliverable message prior to sending.
The above objects can be attained by a system that alerts the sender with a list of the addressees of an e-mail message before the message is sent. The sender can then verify that the addressees are correct or change or delete those on the list. The system also provides such an alert prior to sending an unauthorized message and allows the user to delete the unauthorized message.